Author Topic: Ice Station One-Eye  (Read 3113 times)

One-Eye

  • Misty Moorings Team
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 573
Ice Station One-Eye
« on: February 04, 2011, 05:56:47 PM »
(or how a handful of glacier researchers are helping to produce the world famous "Uncle Elmer's #5 vintage")

Preamble:

The Ming Emperor Lord High Muck-a-Muck Bilga Tess of Red Monde had decreed a new plan for the world of flight simulation and all FBOs had forthwith to comply with the new formulae that were called Eff Ess Ecks. A proclamation was posted for all to read:


***********************************************

PUBLIC NOTICE

By order of His Royal DOSness, the Ming Emperor Lord High Muck-a-Muck Bilga Tess:

Be it known by all!

In this the year 35 AD (Anno DOS) and in the month of Octember, all territorial rights previously granted to FBO, aircraft manufacturers, cartographers and claim stakers have been declared null and void.

All territorial rights and air rights to an altitude of 1,000,000 (one million) feet above Ming sovereign territories shall henceforth be redistributed to highest bidders at Imperial auction. New territories, aircraft, buildings, bridges, other static and mobile objects, whether controlled or AI shall now comply with the conventions listed at the appendix to this proclamation.

In addition, new commandments have been proclaimed to ensure that all Ming subjects live in harmony in my new world. These are as follows:

1. Thou shalt worship no DOS but the one DOS and Emmess shall be his name.

2. Suffer not those who make craven idols for those who make cravens idle are an anathema to me. Nor shalt thou maketh thy processor idle with other dos for my source code is holy. Blessed are the piece takers, for they have taken the piece out of the forbidden fruit.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of thy DOS in vain lest I smite thy PC with file errors, blue screens and other devious and cunning devices of my whim.

4. On six days shalt thou labour. On the seventh thou shalt defrag thy drives, carry out full system scans, delete old files and download all updates and install them. Unbelievers shall be punished by the use of 28k analogue connections.

5. Honour thy Bios and thy motherboard

6. Thou shalt not delete payware add-ons.

7. Thou shalt not peel bananas in a lascivious manner.

8. Thou shalt not use unregistered add-ons. For lo, I shall see thy deeds from afar and bestow upon thee a plague of viruses and wipe thy discs.

9. Thou shalt not falsify thy flight logs by leaving the thy sim unpaused whilst thou maketh the tea and have supper. Thy flight log shall record only time at the desk.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s PC nor his hobby budget but shall be happy with thine own rig. If you have stutters and slide shows, then livest thou beyond thy means – move the sliders leftwise!

Addendum!

11. Thou shalt not populate thy sim with pagan add-ons. save that they can be converted to my will.

Signed by my royal seal (Barents Grey)

Ming! Emperor Lord High Muck-a-Muck Bilga Tess the Thirst!


[The passing breeze wafts the leaflet closer to the beholder’s eye and a spidery scrawl can now be seen in the bottom margin]:


“I do rather like number 7, neat touch, don’t you think?” BG


***********************************************


Enter One-Eye...


(That little episode was the final straw that started the fall of one of the flightsim world's most loved daughters of an addon's developer - Emma Kok, daughter of Lago's and Aerosoft's Mathijs Kok is the name-giver of "Emma Field", arguably one of the most popular addons to Microsoft's Flight Simulator in the past ten years.)

One-Eye looked down on the overgrown ruins of KEWL and sighed. "Didn't take long for the weeds to grow over the field then... Oh well, come on Betsy, time to find a new home." He teased the prop and mixture levers and pointed Betsy Beaver northwards, ish, to find a new home. He'd just taken a final fill at Hood City after having flown down from Pleasant Valley on the other side of the Olympic National

Park. Snowman Phil and Bill Dick's home valley had also suffered the same fate as Kewl, although they'd struggled for a year or so to stay compliant with Bilga Tess's new world rules. In the end Pleasant Valley suffered under heavy 'Acceleration' and crumbled into incompatibility the same way other FBOs had, especially KEWL.

"Where do you guys want to get off?" One-Eye asked his passengers

Limp was quick enough to answer, "I'll stay along for the ride thanks. Maybe We can find some good shaws hunting there, wherevers..."

Uncle Elmer started into wakefulness as One-Eye hit a pothole in the clouds, "What's shaws?"

That cheered all the passengers.... "Why thank you Uncle, well have #5 all round!"; "I'll have a pint of Creme de Menthe, if you don't mind - we got any left, One-Eye?" That last from Limp.

"Yerst... I think I packed some in the life jacket bag under Gary's seat."

(expletive deleted)

"What you worrying about, I gave you a parachute didn't I?"

...

"What do you mean you thought it was waste rag for cleaning the clubhouse?"

...

"Oh, right... OK, fasten your seatbelts then Gary."

...

"You'll need a five-eigths socket and a ratchet to fix the reels to the anchor points. You did bring the toolbox didn't you?"

...

"I removed them to make room to stash a last couple of barrels of Elmer's #5."

...

"I paid you Elmer, and you gave me the recipe, so I promise you your fair share of all sales - and free supplies once I set your still up again and until I can get you a new cabin built."

Limp passed over One-Eye's full glass. "Here you go squire, makes a change for that old trick to work for me - thanks for letting me use it."

One-Eye eyed his trusted friend and butt of all his japes, "Limp, you deserved it. You did remember the shaving buoy, didn't you?"

"What shaving buoy?" replied Limp

Why bless you, I do think I'll have another #5, thanksh."

!!!!

"Aww don't worry Officer Barbie, I know all about the 'eight hours bottle to throttle' rules. I promise I won't touch the throttle for at least eight hours. That OK with you guys?"

...

"Hey, not so loud guys, Fritz is still fast asleep..." One-Eye looked round, "No make that slow asleep; that last quart was enough to keep even a rhino quiet. Perhaps we should have stashe some #5 at the Kwa Zulu ranger station before we transported that sick rhino in Bill's Dakota...? Talking of Rhinocerosses, did you guys know that they are the richest animals on the planet?"

!*!*

"Clouds? So what, they won't hurt us."

...

"Yes Wabbit, I know the terrain here tops over 6000."

!!!

"Oh, that... The Altimeter needle jams against that lifting stickky tape I used to to repair the marking at 2000 feet and it hasn't risen above 2000 feet for the last year, nothing to worry about."

-------

"In the bag marked 'life raft' under Fritz's seat.... Oh... Sorry, those anglers used up the last barf bags when I flew them to Lake Quinault... No, Daffy, you do not use Fritz's Hoody! Just you all use the raft bag - it's big enough..."

...

"Yes, I know there's a big round cheese in there... Oi, Horace, get back in your seat!"

Horace was a breed of cheese apart, hide like a Gorgonzola, heart like a Camembert. Stiffly, he crawled out of his hiding spot and clambered into the jump-seat, humming all the while.

"Phwoar! You don't 'arf 'um badly!" said Limp as horace left a trail of sheepish footprints over his knees...

One-Eye picked up on that, "If you think he hums badly, you should hear him whistle!" A deathly silence hung over the passengers for a while...

*'@%&

"Oh... so the needle's now showing 1800. No worries, we'll be crossing into Canucky airspace near Victoria in about ten moments or so."

.....

"It's been at 1800 for the last ten minutes you say? And we didn't hit anything cumulo granitus? You think I'm suicidal?  Naah - I just fly by feel. I'll feel it soon enough when we hit something hard, no worries. Besides, we're flying below the tree line, so we won't hit anything really hard. The tree tops will warn me that we're getting too low..."

...

"Yes, now you know why I rarely fly above the treeline."

(There follows a noise that reminds the reader of a famous helicopter model...)

"Oh, use the seat cushion covers - they'll rinse out..."

...

"I promised you Barbie, I won't touch the throttle for at least..." One-Eye looked at his watch, "another seven hours or so."

...

"That was tea in that flask."

...

"Sweetened? Of course it was! I like my tea sweet."

...

"Well... it's cane sugar in liquid form, isnit?"

!!!

"It's only a coastguard cutter - danged excise! They are always after my money. I told you I wouldn't touch the throttle... I promised."

...

"I'll pull it out of the wing and send it back priority. How much do you think postage will cost for an aerial that size?"

#####

"Betsy's flown through worse. She's a tough old gal, really she is. I remember the guy I bought her off. Brit guy, Joe, worked in Lebanon at the time. Was on contract to those forces jumpers over in Cyprus on the Kingsfield strip in the mid 70s..."

§$%§$

"Oh, she's much older than that! If only I could scrape the ID plate clean... I think the serial number is a single digit... anyway, this guy who flew her under the Lebanese registration really wanted to know how 'STOL'she really was and was doing bumpandgos around Kingsfield one day. He told me she didn't half stop quick, but was then sluggish on the go-arounds. It was one of the Army guys who told me the truth - Apparently Joe used the threshold zebra crossing as his touch down point. He obviously forgot about the zero underrun and the road on the threshold. Took some concerted effort to appease that Greek chappie who wanted reimbursment for the load of melons and his roof rack that were jammed in the tailwheel..."

...

"Oh, I think the pieces all fell out in the end. She lands alright, doesn't she?"

...

"C of A? Isn't that a chain of shops that sell clothes?"

...

"Every year? You're kidding, right?"

...

"Awwww, c'mon guys, when did I last crash?"

...

"I mean in Betsy!"

...

"That doesn't count! I fixed that with two feet of baling wire."

#########################################


We'll leave One-Eye and the intrepid Kewl Crew here, shall we? There was a considerable amount of hot air being generated on that flight... Yes, it was enough to keep Betsy aloft and deliver the Kewl Crew safely to an undisclosed beach somewhere on Vancouver Island while One-Eye and Limp flew off into the sunset in search of a new base of operations for the now silent #5 still. It hadn't been working now for a few weeks, in fact you could have called it a still still. And if you had, then now it'd still be a still still if One-Eye hadn't discovered the perfect place to sit still for long enough to set up Uncle Elmer's still again.

It was purely by accident, that One-Eye found the place. He'd been flying along at 2000 feet (ish) following some valleys on a westerly bearing with the sun setting off to his left somewhere, when he noticed he was over a glacier.

"Odd," he remarked to Limp, "according to my map we should be near Sitka..."

...

"Oh damn! I forgot that we didn't have enough baling wire for that repair... so that's where you got the extra wire then?" Oh well, If you'da said, I'd have used my orienteering compass. Never mind, let's see if we can find anyone around here..."

On that, One-Eye hung a left and spotted a pair of fires down on the Glacier ahead and two lines of bright red traffic cones in the snow. At the other end was a collection of shacks and a small hangar near one of those windmill generators. There was only one thing for it - land here. Besides, Betsy chose just that moment to decide she was empty and left our intrepid old and bold aviator no choice but to land. One-Eye checked his instruments...

"Hmmm, nothing but 'Smiths'..."

It was another good landing. He walked away from Betsy and looked at the place where she'd come to a standstill.

"Hey One-Eye, I like the way you missed that wrecked Cub at the end of the runway." said Limp, "and bouncing us over that Piste tractor

was another good move..." Limp was easy to impress like that.

Their current location was just behind some huge boulders that the Glacier must have deposited millenia ago. They were completely out of sight of that collection of huts just a bit down the glacier. It turned out that this location was home to half a dozen or so researchers who were watching the glacial flow. "A bit like watching paint dry, only slower." One-Eye remarked later, "these guys could use our help in getting supplies up here. Let's see if we can scratch some backs..."

...and that is how One-Eye discovered the perfect location for Unce Elmer's no longer still still. He's still up there to this day, tending the still and stilling his thirst. By sheer luck, he also discovered that "Gletcherwasser" was the perfect water to use for #5 - every brew was already vintage as soon as it came out of the tap. Three thousand year old meltwater made all the difference.

Maybe if you come a visitin' some time and don't stand on the brakes at the end of the runway, you'll roll on past the pistie beastie and the Skycrane helipad. If you do, just let yourself roll past that line of rocks and drop in at One-Eye's place for a drop and a wag...

Abyssinia soon. And don't forget your chores...
All the best,
Chris "One-Eye" Brisland aka EagleSkinner aka "Dances with paintbrushes"
Check out my msfs 2020 videos on YouTube (Christopher Brisland)